The New Doctor Season Finale Edited
by Banestar
Summary: Edited version of episode 9, the final chapter and season finale of my story The New Doctor: Season One


**Glitch **By Ethan Jobson

Jackson was woken up in his room by the alarm on his phone. He felt a throbbing from his head, rubbing his temple as he felt a wave of slight nausea pass through him. What had he been doing the night before? It seemed so distant. He walked down the stairs, feeling a headache coming on as he did. Was he hung over? It seemed unlikely as he didn't drink very often, but maybe he had. Had Austin been over? It all seemed so strange.

He walked downstairs to find his mother sitting in the kitchen with a cup of coffee in her hand. She was scrolling on her Ipad.

"Morning, love" she said.

"Good morning," he responded, his voice sounding unexpectedly strained as he heard it exit his mouth.

Jackson felt like asking her what had happened, but if he did, she'd really suspect he'd been on something. Which he might've. This was such an uncomfortable feeling.

"You have a good night's sleep?" he asked.

"Yes, actually. By the time I got off work I was dead tired," she said.

Well considering that, it seemed that the "drinking with Austin" theory got a boost. As he ruminated about this, he went to the refrigerator and grabbed a package of bread.

"Do you have time for that? I thought you were getting breakfast at school?" she asked.

Well so much for that theory. He was too straight-laced to have been drinking on a school night. And… hadn't it been summer?

The thoughts seemed to make Jackson's headache worse as he put his head in his hands again. What was with him? How did he mix up the season?

"Jackson, are you alright?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said.

He went to the window to look, and he saw that the color of leaves on the trees did give the unmistakable sign that it was autumn. Still, it bothered him. Then in the corner of his eye he noticed a flash of something that seemed to be coming from atop a nearby mountain, Mount Hoayo, which was visible in the distance from his house.

"What's that?" he asked before he could stop himself.

"What is it?" Mrs. Rogers asked.

"Oh, nothing," he said, not wanting to sound as crazy as he felt.

It had looked like lightning, but it had been _red_. He was really cracking up, wasn't he?

"Are you sure you're alright?" "President Jones declared that new virus a national emergency," Mrs. Rogers asked concernedly.

"Wait, what did you just say?" Jackson asked.

"President Jones, declared the new flu an emergency," she said.

Jackson knew who the president was and his name definitely wasn't Jones.

"Can I see where you saw that?" he asked.

His mother pulled it up on the screen of her IPad. It showed the face of a younger dark-skinned woman speaking on the White House lawn. He definitely remembered the face but not from being president. He scrolled down to the article, until he saw the words _"UNIT passes resolution unanimously in response to president's declaration"_

Right there, it all came back to Jackson. Traveling with the Doctor the last few months, fighting the Reapers with Martha. She'd been sitting at his dinner table! How was she now president, and what control did UNIT have? He checked the date of the article. It was just a month after he had last been on planet. There was no way to explain such a change that quickly, and his mother wouldn't be acting as if everything were normal. It had to have been something Susan did when she put the Key to Time into the TARDIS, the end result of their conflict with her, and the last thing Jackson could remember.

He got up suddenly, left the room and staggered out the back door, feeling even worse than before. He started to feel as he had when he was last on the TARDIS, like he was being being pulled apart from the inside. He could barely hear his mother's calls from behind him. Thankfully, he heard a much more welcoming sound. The sound of the TARDIS landing. The blue box appeared in front of him and the door opened.

"Get in as quickly as you can," the Doctor said. "None of us are safe here."

Jackson entered the large, high-ceilinged control room of the TARDIS, and as he looked up at the multicolored circles on the wall and over to the Doctor at the pink control panel, he found his uneasy feeling to be gone.

"What the hell is going on!" asked Jackson. "Why was I back home, and why was everything different?"

"It's Susan, she rearranged the timeline," said the Doctor, the intrepid alien who Jackson had been traveling across time and space with for the previous few months. "The Key to Time altered events to cause the timeline that you were just in."

"Ok, but why are we in danger?" Jackson asked. "You said that time could be rewritten."

"I did, but the Key went farther than that. It's changed fixed points in time. And it's still happening," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"The timeline is still changing. If it becomes too damaged, it's going to splinter and destroy the universe."

"Well that's pleasant," Jackson said, wryly. "How do we stop it?"

"There's one thing that might work," the Doctor said as she whizzed around the control panel in the center of the TARDIS, Jackson walking over to her as she did so. The Doctor continued to talk as she did this.

"There's a common place, a kind of glitch, that should be present in all versions of the timeline where the disruptions are coming from. We have to get there and try to contain it. Should be around somewhere close by since we were at the epicenter when Susan used the Key," she said.

Jackson jumped up and pointed at her.

"There was a weird flash. I saw it coming from on top of this mountain by my house." he said.

"That has to be it," the Doctor said. "Hold on, we don't have much time."

She tried to start the TARDIS but it just made a sputtering noise and did nothing. The Doctor made a groan of frustration.

"I was afraid of this, she's out of juice from being acted upon so much," the Doctor explained.

"So what do we do?" Jackson asked.

The Doctor gave him a pointed look before responding. "We go on foot."

The Doctor and Jackson started up a steep road that started from Jackson's house.

"So, what're the changes to the timeline so far?" Jackson asked.

"UNIT seems to have been put in control of the US government," the Doctor said. "And their rule seems to be authoritarian in nature."

"There was something else," Jackson said. "Oh, my mom mentioned a virus!"

"Not good. But not surprising. Susan's thoughts when she activated the key were that of pure anger. That kind of emotion won't produce anything good." the Doctor said.

Just then, they heard a distant rumbling from down the road. They dived into the nearby woods and hid behind trees as a series of large military vehicles with the UNIT insignia passed by.

"Speak of the devil," Jackson said as they emerged from the trees.

He wiped the dirt from the ground off his shoes.

"We'll have to be more careful from now on," the Doctor said.

They continued to make their way up the mountain. Jackson watched another flash of red lightning from above them, much closer this time.

"That must've been another shift in the timeline," the Doctor said. "We need to hurry."

As if in response, they heard a shout from behind them.

"Hey, you two! Show me you've been processed right now!"

They looked back to see two soldiers, holding long, sleek, silver weapons.

"Run," the Doctor said bluntly.

Jackson didn't need to be told twice, taking off through the woods as a green blast hit a tree next to them, lighting it on fire. They ran into someone's yard, with the two men in hot pursuit. The Doctor looked down at a metal cable she almost tripped over and pointed her sonic screwdriver at it. The sprinklers immediately went off, hot water blasting in the air and filling it with steam. They dodged another blast, but as Jackson briefly looked back, the soldiers seemed to be struggling with visibility and after running back into the woods, he felt confident that they'd lost them.

They decided to take a break to eat. Jackson tore into a peanut butter and jelly sandwich which the Doctor had brought from the TARDIS. With all that had happened in the last few days he couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten. It seemed that the constant change between timelines and universes had managed to mitigate hunger somewhat, but this hadn't lasted. As Jackson finished eating, he noticed that the Doctor was unusually quiet.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Just trying to think of some brilliant plan to beat Susan," she said. "Trying to draw on something I or he did."

"So what's it like, having two sets of memories?" Jackson asked, finding the time to formulate a question he'd wanted to ask when they were before the universe.

"It's a bit like when you remember something from a dream, but more clear," she said. "I feel like it could've happened but rationally I know it didn't happen to me."

Jackson nodded. "Sounds tough," he said weakly, not being able to come up with something better.

"Do you hold it against me?" she asked. "Lying to you about who I am?"

Jackson was taken aback by the earnestness of the question. It wasn't often that the Doctor wasn't trying to be the most clever person in the room and showed this kind of vulnerability.

"You didn't lie to me, though. You're still the Doctor. He knew that when he gave you his memories. And no matter what, you're still my Doctor," he said.

They sat in silence for a second with Jackson impressed with himself for what he'd said. But it was true. With all they'd been through, he didn't care what universe she was from. She was the Doctor.

"Thank you for that," the Doctor said. "But what's that?"

Jackson turned around as the touching moment was broken. There was a light, seemingly a man-made one this time, visible in the distance. The Doctor immediately started in the direction of the light. Jackson tried to whisper to her to stop but she didn't respond, so he had no choice but to follow her.

After a couple minutes of walking, they came to a clearing in the woods. In the foreground was a large structure. There were tall dark walls with barbed wire on the top. Guards stood menacingly on the walls, pacing back and forth. The white searchlight that they had seen shone around the wall. Jackson noticed small, metallic, drone-like devices zipping across the sky. He and the Doctor both hid behind the trees just out of sight. Once again he saw the flash of red light, now agonizingly close from just behind what he assumed to be a prison.

Jackson's suspicions were horrifyingly confirmed as a yell rang out and one side of the wall slowly slid apart to make way for a line of people being marched into the prison with guards on either side of them and the drone-things floating above them. Jackson could make out that they were not human, looking green and scaly although humanoid. More concerningly, he could also make out the expressions of fear on their faces. He saw the Doctor tense up beside him, looking ready to spring into action.

"Doctor, remember if we get to the glitch, this all goes away," he whispered.

The Doctor nodded to him. Jackson understood how hard it was to ignore what was going on. Even Jackson felt the impulse to stop and help the alien people. But they had to stay focused on the mission, because if they didn't, everyone, including the prisoners, would be screwed. They started to walk around the structure while still keeping out of range of the searchlight. But unfortunately, their evasion didn't last long.

"Unidentified lifeforms detected!" came a loud sound from above them.

Jackson looked up to see one of the drones, which he could now tell looked like little winged robots with glowing red dots for eyes.

"Alert! Alert!" it blared. He heard the sound of guards yelling and saw them running at the Doctor and him.

He and the Doctor took off, hitting their kick early in the race. But just as it seemed they were almost around the wall, a small grenade was thrown in front of them and set off a gas cloud that enshrouded them. Jackson started coughing immediately and after running desperately blind, he hit a tree and fell to the ground as darkness washed over him.

They woke up in an empty room that was completely grey, a solitary, bare lightbulb providing only a dim light. The exit to the room was blocked by lasers in the shape of bars. Jackson rubbed his head, still aching from the collision.

"Where are we?" asked Jackson.

"Probably inside the compound we were just outside," the Doctor said. "If we can just get out we still have a chance to get to the glitch."

Jackson watched as she walked around the cell feeling around and tapping. Although deprived of her sonic screwdriver, it reminded Jackson of one of the first times he'd seen her, tinkering around in his basement. Unfortunately it led to the same result. She kicked the wall in frustration.

"I can't find a weak spot!" she exclaimed.

"And you're justified in that. UNIT makes sure that there isn't one," came a voice from behind them.

They turned around to see Martha Jones, removed from a pantsuit, and instead in regular military fatigues.

"Martha, you're not president!" the Doctor exclaimed, expressing Jackson's thoughts.

"Uh yeah, of course not." "How'd you know my name?" she asked.

"Must've been a change in the timeline," the Doctor said, ignoring her question.

"Listen, I have food for you both. But you'll be interrogated soon," Martha digressed.

"Martha, you have to do something! I know you can't be part of this!" the Doctor pleaded desperately. "Cleansing by species? That's not you in any reality."

"I don't know exactly what you're talking about, but I made a pledge to keep the planet safe, even if I don't like it," she said.

"You can't, you know it's wrong!" Jackson yelled. The Doctor then started talking again.

"Listen to me. We know each other. We're friends in another reality. And in that reality all this madness here isn't happening. If you just trust me, and help me get out of here, I can fix this," she said.

Martha looked uncertain which Jackson saw as a good sign. Still it didn't seem to work.

"Listen, I got you the same cell so you could say bye to each other. I'm sorry but you should do that. There's nothing else I can do," she said.

And Martha left before either Jackson or the Doctor could do anything about it. Time seemed to go by incredibly slowly thereafter. The Doctor paced around, searching desperately as hours seemed to go by.

"Do you think you got through to her?" Jackson asked.

"We haven't gone to interrogation," the Doctor said. "So that's a good sign."

Jackson's heart sank as Martha and another guard, who was male, came back to the cell, brandishing the same tech-guns as before.

"You, come here," he said pointing to Jackson.

The lasers fell away as the guard pressed a button and Jackson gulped down his nervousness and stumbled out.

"No, no! Take me!" the Doctor said. "I'm an alien, much more interesting."

But the lasers were reactivated after Jackson left and the Doctor was unable to do anything. Then, as he was about to give up, many events took place in the space of seconds. In a flash of motion, Martha smashed her weapon into the other guard's head twice producing a grunt from him, kicked his gun out of his hands and shot him in the face with her gun. The guard slumped to the ground. Martha went to the button by the cell and deactivated the lasers again.

"Come with me," she beckoned.

As they walked down the long, high-ceilinged halls of the facility, Martha explained herself.

"You're right, this isn't what I want. When I signed up for UNIT, I thought they were just doing what was right for the planet, but things progressed so fast until we got where we are now."

They had turned a corner and gone onto the next hall. Martha put her eyes up to a sensor next to a door and a light passed over them and Jackson heard a clicking noise. Martha opened up the door and led them into a stairwell.

"But what really got me is that I kind of can remember you. Both of you. I remember the Reapers. It's vague and I can't place when it's from, but it's there," she said.

"A consequence of the instability of the timelines," said the Doctor. "The timeline is changing too much, too quickly. It doesn't have a strong enough hold on reality."

Their conversation was broken by the sound of guards entering the stairwell above them. They broke into a run down the stairs with Martha leading. Jackson gasped for air as they went down a dozen flights at breakneck speed. They finally got to a blank door with an exit sign.

"We're on the other side of the compound, closest to where you were going when apprehended. I'll hold them off for as long as I can."

"Thank you so much," Jackson said. "We'll find a way to stop this," he said, desperately trying to express the deep emotions of gratitude he felt at the moment.

"For all our sakes, I hope you can," she said.

They heard the sound of the guards coming from directly above them. For a brief moment, as the Doctor and Jackson exited, they heard only the sounds of the UNIT weapons being shot from behind them, before the door closed and they were met by the cool air outside.

It was now just a short uphill climb to the glitch. They walked up the steep incline, leaves crackling under their feet as they did so.

"What's the plan, anyway?" Jackson asked, realizing the point had never been elaborated upon.

"I have to try and isolate the key from the temporal vortex. It's not too hard. The timeline is fighting against the change made by the key. That's what's causing the glitch," the Doctor said.

"That doesn't sound too bad," Jackson said.

"Except that Susan will be doing everything she can to stop us from getting it," the Doctor said.

The red light flashed again in front of them, forebodingly.

They finally emerged from the thick forest to a flat, grassy expanse. In the middle of the field was a giant void through which Jackson could see the cube that he knew to be the Key to Time. In a circle, all bowing towards the void, leaving their faces obscured, were figures in dark cloaks. They couldn't have numbered more than twenty, a small gathering. A chill went down Jackson's spine.

"This doesn't look good," he said.

"Not at all," the Doctor said weakly.

The person closest to them got up slowly and turned to them, removing her cloak to show the face of Susan Foreman. She was no longer wearing her armor but was armed and looked as crazed as ever.

"I'm glad you've come," she said. "Do you want to say hello to your friends?"

One by one, the figures got up. And Jackson saw them pull off their hoods in terrifying fashion.

He recognized his mother, and Austin immediately. But near them was someone else who he recognized from only photos.

"Dad," he said softly.

"Yes, this is your father, or at least the one in this timeline," Susan said.

Around them were people that Jackson also somewhat recognized. But these were people he had only seen in the TARDIS' archives. A tall woman with bright red hair. A woman with curly dirty blond hair and a filled-out figure. A short young man with a mop of dark brown hair. These were the Doctor's past companions. His "mother" started talking to Jackson first.

"Come home now, Jackson! How could you go off gallivanting with this woman and leave me alone!" she screamed, catching Jackson off guard.

"How could he not?" Jackson's "father" asked. "He left you just like I left. And I didn't tell you where I was. I didn't even leave a hint. All because I couldn't care less about you," he finished.

Jackson just stood there, thrown off and on the verge of tears.

"And neither can I," his "mother" stated.

That snapped Jackson out of it. While his leaving his mother and wonders about his father had plagued Jackson and hit at his insecurities, he would never, not once, doubt that his mother cared. And just like that, the illusion was broken. Jackson tuned out the rest of what they said and heard the Doctor being similarly manipulated.

"We know you're not 'im. You can act like 'im all you want, fly in 'is box and use 'is toys, but it doesn't change anything," said the redhead in a Scottish accent.

"How dare you pretend to be him?" asked the heavier woman.

"Imposter. Traitor. You're the reason 'e's dead," the boy said in an equally heavy Scottish accent.

The Doctor seemed extremely affected by the verbiage of abuse.

"Doctor!," Jackson yelled. "Don't listen to them! Remember what I said!"

The Doctor looked his way and the focus and determination seemed to come back into her eyes.

"Nice tricks, Susan but I know those aren't my friends," she said.

"Maybe so," the crazed Time Lady responded "But you still have to get through them."

"And I will," said the Doctor, pulling out something from her pocket. Jackson recognized it immediately. It was one of the UNIT guns Martha had used.

Susan snorted derisively. "You wouldn't use a weapon. You're too honorable."

"True, but when I took this from a guard at UNIT, I noticed it had the same 'Lazarus capabilities' I've seen with UNIT weapons in my timeline. And in that case, it's not just appropriate, it's merciful," the Doctor explained.

Jackson understood immediately.

"Catch!" she said before throwing it to Jackson.

He aimed it at the crowd of parallel versions of the Doctor and Jackson's friends and family. They immediately started to de-age, occupying them. The Doctor started to make a break for the void, going in a sprint. Letting out a mad yell, Susan sent a blast that knocked the weapon from Jackson's hands and sent him to the ground from the force. This gave a momentary reprieve to Susan's minions but the Doctor had made it past them, leaving them too far behind to catch up. Unfortunately Susan wasn't. As the Doctor dived into the void, Susan dived in too and grabbed her.

They both wrestled each other, with the cube in the distance and nothing else around them. Alone in nothingness, finally able to vent all their misery into a struggle with each other.

"Get off me!" the Doctor said, squirming. "Just let me save us!"

"I don't want to be saved!" Susan said, pinning her arms back. "I just want you dead. If that means the universe dies too, then so be it!"

The Doctor slid out of her grasp, diving into space, desperately grasping for the cube. Susan grabbed her around the waist again in a rugby tackle. The Doctor's heart sank. She would never get the upper hand. There wasn't enough time.

Her mind worked furiously. There was only one thing she could try. The way the old Doctor had gotten through to her. She put her hands to Susan's head and watched the yellow energy make Susan's forehead light up, showing her everything. All the happy moments of her childhood before Rassilon got to her. The moments with her, the Doctor, and Koschei as a family. She had to break the hold the brainwashing had on Susan.

And it worked. The Doctor watched the hate leave Susan's eyes, a compassion returning to her face that the Doctor had waited so long to see again.

"Grandmother?" she whispered softly as her grip left the Doctor.

"Just a moment," the Doctor said. She floated gracefully up and grabbed the cubic key.

They both felt as if they were being pulled down until they were out of the void, which closed behind them. They sat on the hill from before. All the people were gone but Jackson still laid there. The Doctor rushed to him.

"Are you ok?" she asked.

"Yeah, just a bit sore," he said "Did you do it?"

"Yes, the timeline's back to normal," the Doctor said. "And Susan is her real self again… at least for now."

At this, she went over to Susan, who was laying on the ground with tears coming down her cheeks. Jackson followed, although with more of a hobble.

"Susan, it's ok," the Doctor said, hugging her. "You're finally free."

"It won't last. You know that," she gasped through her tears.

"You don't know that. I could find-"

"No, I can't afford that. I'll go back to being that monster. I can't allow that," she said.

She walked over to where Jackson had dropped the UNIT gun. The Doctor went off in hot pursuit.

"Susan, what are you doing?" the Doctor asked.

"There's only one thing I can do. I have to do it," she said. "There's no dimensional duplicate of me in this timeline, I checked it."

"That's impossible. This is the timeline where I traveled with you for years. You have to be wrong," the Doctor insisted.

"Wasn't your real granddaughter, was I? This universe's version of you found me on a Time Lord colony, didn't you?" she asked.

"Yes but," the Doctor started.

"I have to do this. I have to de-age myself," she said.

"No, Susan! There has to be another way!" the Doctor pleaded.

"No use. There is no other version. Only me. I am the Susan of this universe."

"Just wait. Give me some time," the Doctor begged, looking on the verge of tears.

"I can't wait. I already feel the monster Rassilon made starting to awaken inside of me," she said. "Thank you for all you've done, grandmother. I love you." she said before pressing a button on the gun and aiming it towards herself.

They both watched as the years faded off her face The Doctor rushed over to shut off the weapon, but by the time she was able to, all that was left was a baby. The Doctor looked at the child and broke down, crying.

/

Weeks later, the Doctor left the TARDIS, carrying the baby in a white towel to an identical blue box, sitting on the rocky terrain of the Time Lord colony planet.

She looked down at the child.

"I lost you in this universe too, in the Time War. At least it was over then, and I didn't have to see you turned into what you were there. But you need to promise me that until then, you will be happy. You will enjoy yourself. You will be good to him. He'll take care of you. But I need you to accomplish your dreams," she said.

She kissed the baby's forehead and left her at the door. She rapped on the other blue box's door. She ran off into the distance and hid behind a large rock, before watching a man in a suit with long white hair say in his stern voice, "Now what do we have here?" As the man brought Susan in, the Doctor could only turn away and go back to her own TARDIS.

Opening the door, she saw Jackson standing by the console.

"Hey are you ok?" he asked sympathetically.

"As much as I'll ever be," she said. "I had my time with her. Now she'll have her own adventures. She has another full, happy life to live and the Doctor to take care of her."

"Hey," Jackson said. "Don't forget, you are the Doctor," he said.

She gave him an incredibly genuine smile and then seemed to revert to her everyday self.

"So, I threw the Lazarus gun into a volcano. Key to Time is scattered in pieces throughout time and space. So the universe is ok," she said.

"Does that mean I have to go home?" Jackson said.

"Well you do have to go back to school," the Doctor said, pulling a lever as the TARDIS took off. "But I did have one treat for you before you go."

She opened the door and he heard the roar of fans and a buzzer going off. She took two tickets out of her pocket.

"Courtside seats, Game 6 of the Intergalactic Basketball Association Finals, 76ers vs Abraxals, June 8, 3225" she said. "I hear it's a classic."

"Thank you," said Jackson as they walked into the arena.

"No, as always, thank you," the Doctor responded.

**Fin**


End file.
